1-880.] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



Ill 



The following extracts are from 

 a paper read before the Chicago 

 Biological Society, February 4th, 

 1880, and published in the Chicago 

 Medical Gazette: 



* * * When the metal, in an un- 

 divided or uncombined state, is ad- 

 ministered, it rapidly passes through 

 the intestines, with apparently no 

 effect whatever. The cohesive 

 properties of its component parti- 

 cles resist separation. Considerable 

 trituration with an excipient is 

 necessary to reduce the metal to 

 globules ; shaken up in water an un- 

 even bat pretty fine division may 

 be made, but eventually the fluid 

 metal runs together again. Honey, 

 fats, oils, confections, etc., when 

 mixed with the fine globules, tend 

 to keep the particles apart. I found 

 that albumen and glycerin would 

 effect a separation better than many 

 substances. Finely divided, mercu- 

 ry presents a grayish appearance, 

 passing into black as the division is 

 made extreme, this condition favor- 

 ing the reflection of light from par- 

 ticle to particle, until no rays are 

 reflected to the eye. The micro- 

 scope shows that no change from 

 the metallic state has occurred in re- 

 ducing the metal to this form. To 

 count the globules in one gramme 

 (15.4 gr.) of blue mass, I spread it, 

 mixed with water, over a square 

 decimeter of surface and found an 

 average of 2,000 visible under a very 

 low magnifying power in an area of 

 a square centimeter, which would 

 make 200,000 of these globules in a 

 gramme. But under an objective 

 magnifying seventy diameters, more 

 than ten times as many became ap- 

 parent. Dr. Lester Curtis estimated 

 the size of these globules at from 

 g^j^oft of an inch to sizes almost im- 

 measurably small. In a gramme of 

 pill-mass there is one-third of a 

 gramme of mercury, which would 

 measure ^j^^^ of a cubic centimeter. 



Taking .01 millimeter (KoUiker) as 

 the average diameter of the capil- 

 laries, the division of this mass into 

 twenty-five million globules would 

 suffice to reduce all the mercury to 

 capillary sizes. But we have seen 

 that all are not so reduced, though 

 many are divided up very much 

 smaller. Carpenter, on p. 138 of 

 his Physiology, asserts that metallic 

 mercury, finely divided, can be ab- 

 sorbed by the blood-vessels from 

 the alimentary canal. 



* * * Under a three-quarter inch 

 objective, magnifying seventy dia- 

 meters, I placed the web of a frog's 

 foot, and acquainted myself as 

 thoroughly as possible with the 

 peculiarities of its blood-vessels, 

 pigment-granules, appearances by 

 reflected and transmitted light, and 

 then gave the frog five grains of 

 blue mass. Twenty-four hours after- 

 ward I examined the frog, and was 

 surprised to find little globules of 

 mercury mingled with the mucus 

 it had excreted from its skin. Brush- 

 ing these off, I placed its feet again 

 under the same lens, and found 

 blood-vessels choked with metallic 

 mercury : aneurismal and varicose 

 pouches were distended with mer- 

 cury, and a great number of so-called 

 pigment-granules had changed to a 

 yellow, metallic luster ; these spots 

 reflected the light as would mer- 

 cury when examined by direct 

 rays. As many as twenty of these 

 lacunae, or star-shaped bodies could 

 be counted between two toes, and 

 altogether there were about a hun- 

 dred on each foot. The close re- 

 semblance between these lacunae 

 thus injected, and the description 

 in Strieker of the lymphatic sacs in 

 the course of the lymphatics of the 

 frog, led me to believe, at Dr. Lester 

 Curtis' suggestion, that I had ob- 

 served mercury in the lymphatic 

 channels of the frog. Two little 

 tubules choked with mercury, pre- 



